96 went to sleep there-not, however, be- fore they had limped past a formal reception line of elegantly clad digni- taries, Prince Philip and Dr. Singh among them. Later that evening, I ran into Rabbi Hertzberg on the Via Frate Elia, a busy shopping thoroughfare near the basilica. He was accompanied by a clutch of policemen, and looked very much like a lifer who had just made it over the wall of the Big House. He had been allowed out, he said, to have dinner with Prince Philip. When I inquired about the days' activities, he said that the leaders were trying to find ways to disseminate to their people back home some of what they'd learned, and that they were still get- ting on remarkably well and certainly had had their ecological conscious- nesses raised. He also told me that he had been wrong about Dr. Nasseef's absence: Dr. Nasseef had been in Mos- cow, discussing the rights of Muslims in Russia; he had shown up early that morning and would participate in the ceremony the next day. T HE Religion & Nature Inter- faith Ceremony at the basilica on Monday morning started promptly at a quarter past ten. An expensively \ ( L "....,. Philip and Queen Elizabeth the pre- ceding March, when they visited New Zealand. Three women and a man, expressing anger at Britain's non-rati- fication of the Treaty of Waitangi, which was signed in 1840 and gave the Maori guarantees regarding their lands, possessions, and rights as Brit- ish subj ects, had dropped their pants and exposed their buttocks in the course of a state visit to the city of Christchurch. This insult, known as a whakapohane, had also been offered to the Prince and Princess of Wales in 1983, on a similar occasion.) Accord- ing to the program notes, Reverend Waru's challenge went beyond the traditional role of establishing whether or not a visitor was friendly: "The challenge is that [ conservationists] and the major faiths and cultures of the world should take seriously the perspectives and values which the in- digenous peoples of the world have to offer on how we should live with and in nature. His Royal Highness accepts the challenge on behalf of all the repre- sentatives." Just before the procession entered the basilica, a muezzin called upon all assembled to pause for a moment of silent reflection while he chanted a passage from the Koran. It began, "Behold! In the creation of the heavens and earth and in the al- ternation of the night and day are signs for men of understand- ing. " Normally, the basilica's beau- tiful Giotto frescoes, depicting the life of St. Francis, are ex- tremely difficult to see, because of the church's poor lighting. Now, however, the church was ablaze with television lights (the cere- mony was being beamed, via sat- ellite, around the world), and Giotto's delicate blue skies and purple cloaks leaped forth-not altogether agreeably-in almost Disney-like living color. The opening procession was ushered in by the strains of the Hundred and Forty-eighth Psalm, a full- throttled hymn of praise to God the Creator, set to music by the modern British composer Ilona Sekacz. Father Serrini, looking somewhat abashed, welcomed everybody, and eXplained that although the ceremony would consist of five separate liturgies, each of them would "celebrate the dignity of nature and the duty of every person to live harmoni- ously within the natura] world." Father Serrini's welcoming words printed program eXplained that the ceremony had been "designed" by an "international liturgy working party" brought together by ICGREC, Martin Palmer's group, and stage-directed by two volunteers from the Royal Shake- speare Company. Among the cere- mony's patrons were the Regional Government of Umbria, Camping Fontemaggio, Firefly Productions, Livraghi-Ogilvy & Mather, the Ital- ian Ministry of Defense-Army, Mar- tini & Rossi, Determined Productions, and the President and government of Zambia. The event was heralded by more Assisi trumpets and Swiss and Tibetan horns, and opened officially with a procession of religious and secular no- tables, led by Philip, which started out at the Sacro Convento and ended in- side the nave of the basilica On the piazza in front of the basilica, Sonny Waru, "on behalf of the indigenous peoples and cultures of the world," offered Philip a Maori challenge by laying a green twig at his feet as a symbol of peace. Philip picked it up, and, with a somewhat embarrassed grin, leaned forward and touched noses with the Maori priest. (This was a far more agreeable version of the challenge than the one offered Prince ( ! 1 - L\\ C0 7 ( -- - - ,-- \ -- --- --- c::::....... '---- ' --- ---- \ \ --=--= - "I do have an embarrassment of rzches. Oddly, however, I'm not at all embarrassed by zt."